Divide categories evenly between mods (or have all mods moderate all categories)

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Divide categories evenly between mods (or have all mods moderate all categories)

Okay, since I kind of got a non-answer in the "Questions for the Moderators" thread, I'll pose it here as a suggestion:

Currently, you have specific mods assigned to individual categories, and then the General category, which is a catch-all for which any mod will validate stories in the queue.

Since chapters in General get validated so much more quickly than elsewhere (all 29 chapters of my story Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle went up in the time I got about half a dozen chapters of Hogwarts Houses Divided validated), not surprisingly, people are now sticking their stories in General even when they belong in another category.

My suggestion: make all mods responsible for validating all queues. I realize that each mod probably has categories s/he prefers to mod, and categories s/he doesn't, so it's fine for them to concentrate on their preferences (and not make someone who absolutely loathes Snape/Hermione have to touch that queue ), but surely you can work out a way so that if stories in one queue are waiting significantly longer than another, the next available mod can take a look at them.

Having read both Inverity's posts, and agreeing that the response to his/her first question was a non-answer, I feel I should add my opionion here. The first answer was essentially 'The slower category is a slower category and don't use Ask a Moderator to ask a moderator'. Huh?

Every story on MNFF has a date of when submitted and when validated. When I see some stories approved in a day, but others approved in ten, it makes me ask 'Is the queue really a queue?' Right now the answer is no, it's really a dozen different queues moving at different speeds.

Inverarity has an excellent and very popular chaptered story, already completely written, that will essentially have taken a year to post at the current rate of verification in the Post-Hogwarts queue. Inverarity's concern, one I share, is the wildly different wait times for approval between categories. We understand that real life comes before volunteer mod duty, and we thank you all for your continuous effort, but can the staff find a way to redistribute responsibilities so all the categories move at a fairly constant rate? At least make a standard rule such as 'No mod can read stories submitted on the thirteenth until we've completed all those submitted on the tenth'. That way the queue will truly be a queue where we each really get our turn in the order we arrived. Otherwise, we'll all get smart enough to label every story we write a 'General Fic', no matter what it really is!

Sorry to sound like water on the burning fire, but there is already something in place (however I think this could get improved).

There are your Mods who are assigned to certain categories as you know, and then all the Mods are assigned to General. Then there are Mods who are called "Sweepers" and they help out any queue that is getting ridiculously long. They have their hand in most areas of fanfiction in terms of understanding and nit-picking out IC/OOC, as well as your basic Modly-traits.

The problem is (correct me if I'm wrong Mods) but it is a very time-consuming job and therefore there are a lot of Mods coming and going because it is just too much for them to juggle in their RL at times, therefore there are less Sweeper Mods, hence some queues becoming a long wait.

The other reason why Mods are assigned to certain categories is because it's their "specialty" and know what to look for in terms of IC/OOC, knowledge of the era/circumstances, not just on their reading preference. So if all the Mods reviewed all categories they may be disinclined to read, the standard would not be as good as it is now.

Another point to remember in terms of submission dates is that when you press submit, you are at the end of the line. No one can jump forwards in the queue, you can only go back to the end of the line. The way to do that is either make edits to your story before it gets reviewed or you delete it from the queue and re-submit all over again. So there is no possible way (from my understanding) for my story to get validated before yours if I submitted it on the 20th and you on the 18th unless you've edited your work.

I really don't mean to sound horrible because this is the second post in which I've posted rebuttal, but I do agree with you that maybe the Mods do need some more hands at times to sweep up the queues, however I am sure they'll ask for help when they need it (which from being on here for a long time, they generally do).

Another point to remember in terms of submission dates is that when you press submit, you are at the end of the line. No one can jump forwards in the queue, you can only go back to the end of the line. The way to do that is either make edits to your story before it gets reviewed or you delete it from the queue and re-submit all over again. So there is no possible way (from my understanding) for my story to get validated before yours if I submitted it on the 20th and you on the 18th unless you've edited your work.

Yes, I understand how the queue works, thank you.

All of the above is only true with respect to a single queue. What we actually have are multiple queues. Hence the problem.

Yes I completely understand that, but the reason why this is occurring is because like everyone has said so far, some categories are far bigger than others, meaning it's harder to control.

The problem with saying 'No approving/rejecting a story added on the 14th before one on the 11th' over the whole site is that should it be for a contest, for instance, and they are submitting last-minute, that means that person could potentially miss out if they get rejected and need a last-minute edit. I personally have put something in the queue two days before the deadline, got rejected and had to edit and re-submit only hours before the queue for that competition would shut. Had the rule being suggested been in place, I would have missed out.

I'm not saying it's not a good idea but keep in mind that it's not fair to make a person wait 10 days simply because there are longer queues other places. Like I said before, maybe it should be considered that there needs to be more specialised Mods for particular queues instead of getting all Mods to control all queues, or hire more Sweeper Mods that can help out when need be. To me the rule would defeat the purpose of having particular Mods catching out those problems that us author's may need to fix, hence meaning we loose the wonderful quality in not only a great site, but also improving our work.

I'm sorry if I'm way off base here but yeah, that's just my view so I'm going back to hibernate before I cause any more problems.

Certain mods mod certain categories. I, for example, mod HG/SS as my main cat and sweep as appropriate. One mod (or in larger categories, two or three) keeps tabs over a cat because then one mod can follow a story and work with an author directly. In my cat for example, while I was away for a week on a trip, I asked another mod to watch over the category. That mod may have rejected a chapter that she thought was OOC, when I knew, having read the story to that point, that the characters had developed enough through the plot that the actions were no longer OOC. Particuarly in non-canon pairing cats, OOC-ness is a huge obstacle, hence the reason it makes sense for one or two mods to become overly familar with a story.

Now, I'm not by any means saying this isn't a problem in the sweeper cats. That is why, if you've worked with a particular mod on a story that might be rejected, again, for example, for OOC-ness, you can add an author note requesting a specific mod to look at your chapter. (Note that this does generally increase your queue time compared to other general or D/A or humor fics.)

If one mod is having RL issues, there is a thread that we post in requesting help, and then anyone can mod the cat. Additionally, all chapters that have been in queue longer than seven days become fair game for sweepers.

I understand that it can be frustrating for the chapters to be validated at different speeds, however, the system is set up this way for a reason, and is probably not likely to change in the immediate future.

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